An Indian pastor who was in a coma after being beaten up by a gang of masked and drunken Hindu extremists has told how he had fearlessly shared the gospel with his attackers, and is now praying for them.

Officials on both sides of the border said its final defeat could come swiftly, although they still fear it will reconstitute as a guerrilla force, capable of waging attacks without territory to defend.

Israeli police said yesterday that they had detained 15 suspected Jewish extremists after an undercover investigation into a group accused of tracking down and threatening Arab men dating Jewish women.

President Donald Trump struck a blow against the 2015 Iran nuclear deal on Friday, defying both US allies and adversaries by refusing to formally certify that Tehran is complying with the accord even though international inspectors say it is.

Myanmar today launched its first bid to improve relations between Buddhists and Muslims since an eruption of deadly violence in August inflamed communal tension and triggered an exodus of some 520,000 Muslims to Bangladesh.

Pope Francis joined other church leaders in the USA and around world to offer prayers and condolences after at least 50 people were killed and more than 400 wounded in Las Vegas in the worst mass shooting in American history.

Tomorrow, Monday, Hamas hands over control of Gaza to a unity government. Although it agreed to the arrangement three years ago, the decision to implement it now marks a striking reversal for Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the US and most of the most powerful Arab countries

The freed priest Father Tom Uzhunnalil, who endured 18 months in captivity in Yemen, could not but help shed a tear of relief as he was welcomed home by Salesians in his native India, World Watch Monitor reports.

Iraqi Christians fear further violence just months after Mosul and the Nineveh Plains were freed from the control self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) as a result of the independence referendum in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

The Catholic Bishop of Marawi appealed to Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday to allow some displaced Marawi families to return to their war-torn city, as he also urged Christians to help Muslim communities there.

Experts on witchcraft are gathering under the banner of the United Nations (UN) in Geneva this week for discussions aimed at tackling the phenomenon, which is estimated to kill, maim and affect thousands of people every year.

A Christian teenager has been beaten to death by his classmates only days into beginning school after drinking from the same glass as a Muslim, according to reports and the charity British Pakistani Christians.

Pope Francis, on his fifth visit to his native Latin America, is visiting Colombia with a message of peace. But despite a fragile three-month ceasefire, the country is still riven with conflict and has millions upon millions of internally displaced people.

A simmering row over church land in Jerusalem has reached a head after church leaders in the Holy City yesterdayhit out at Israel for an alleged breach of a status quo that has been agreed for centuries.

Government forces in the Philippines have finally cleared and retaken a Catholic church in the centre of the predominantly Muslim city of Marawi after 95 days of fighting there, according to The Philippine Star.

The Syrian army and Hezbollah on Monday prepared to escort Islamic State fighters to eastern Syria from their enclave on the border with Lebanon under an agreement following a week-long offensive against the jihadist group.

Houston is facing worsening historic flooding in the coming days as Tropical Storm Harvey dumps more rain on the city, swelling rivers to record levels and forcing federal engineers on Monday to release water from area reservoirs in hopes of controlling the rushing currents.

Pastor Mark Burns, an ally of Donald Trump, has denied to Christian Today that he has experienced any visa problems while in India to preach despite a report implying that he was in violation of rules against the promotion of religion.

Tensions between Coptic Christians and Muslims in an Upper Egyptian village eased this week following weekend clashes after the Christians were prevented from holding a Mass at a private home because they had no permit.

Civil war, intense famine and a refugee crisis have ravaged South Sudan in recent months. The situation is now so stark that thousands in the country have fled their homes and sought refuge in a Christian cathedral.

The Catalonia police on Sunday said investigators were still working on the hypothesis of 12 suspects in the Barcelona attacks that took place on Thursday and that one man was still sought. Speaking to local radio, spokesman Albert Oliva said this man was Moroccan-born 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub.

Spanish police were on Saturday searching for the driver of a van that ploughed into a crowd in Barcelona, killing 13 people, in one of two deadly attacks in Catalonia carried out by a network of suspected Islamist militants.

A complaint has been rejected from a Catholic church in the Dutch city of Tilburg after two pornography actors were filmed having sex in the confessional box for a film that was posted on a porn website in the country earlier this year.

Mercy Ships and the Spring Harvest team have formed a new partnership, and at Easter next year will come together to tell the stories of lives being transformed in Africa, and how the church in Britain can get involved.

A gathering of hundreds of white nationalists in Virginia took a deadly turn on Saturday when a car ploughed into a group of counter-protesters and killed at least one person in a flare up of violence that challenged U.S. President Donald Trump.

The family of an Egyptian Coptic Christian soldier who died last month on his first day at work says he was murdered because of his Christian faith. The soldier died in the same regiment where another Copt died in mysterious circumstances in November 2015, according to World Watch Monitor (WWM).

Syrian government and allied forces have taken the last major town in Homs province from Islamic State, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday, as the army advances towards militant strongholds in the east of the country.

Israeli police arrested five antiquities dealers in Jerusalem over the weekend, seizing a range of artefacts including gold coins and ancient weapons as part of an international investigation into smuggled Iraqi items involving the evangelical-run crafts supply firm Hobby Lobby.

Thirty-three people including seven minors have been arrested in East Jerusalem after dozens of Israeli police raided the homes of those suspected of involvement in the violent clashes over security at the Temple Mount.

An Ethiopian Christian man suffered deep wounds to the back of his head when he was attacked by a group of local Muslims with machetes while at home alone because he had been evangelising, according to World Watch Monitor (WWM).

Finland has reportedly seen a flood of conversions from Islam to Christianity, with hundreds of asylum seekers from the Middle East turning to the Christian faith, officials in the Evangelical Lutheran community said.

School kids who talk about Jesus or exchange Christmas cards with classmates could find themselves penalized in the name of inclusiveness under new proposals being floated by Australian education officials.

Missionary Petr Jasek was locked up with ISIS fighters in a Sudan prison where he was relentlessly abused by the jihadis. At first he prayed every day for freedom but that changed when he saw how God was working even in that place of hell.

39 Articles of Faith, 39 books in the OT – and from Sunday, 39 provinces in the Anglican Communion. Archbishop Justin Welby is to visit Muslim-majority Sudan to inaugurate the 39th province of the Worldwide Anglican Communion

Five members of an American interfaith delegation to Israel, including three Jews, were prevented from boarding their flight from Washington DC, reportedly because of their activism on behalf of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS).

A persecution watchdog group has shared the story of a Muslim extremist who upon witnessing a church service led by Christians in war-torn Syria decided to abandon his radical lifestyle and turn to Jesus Christ.

A federal judge in Michigan halted on Monday the deportation of more than 1,400 Iraqi nationals from the United States, the latest legal victory for the Iraqi nationals facing deportation in a closely watched case.

The head of the Anglican Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, Bishop Howard Gregory, has broken ranks with many fellow Christian leaders in the region and urged for the removal of the offence of sodomy from the law.

Israel will not remove metal detectors whose installation outside a major Jerusalem mosque has triggered the bloodiest confrontations with the Palestinians in years, but could eventually reduce their use, Israeli officials said on Sunday.

A recent report from the Woolf Institute found that local communities – especially faith and other minority groups – are increasingly important at times of crisis. The report authors Jan-Jonathan Bock and Sami Everett explain the quiet citizen subtitle to the report and how this is linked to an increase in social and political engagement by local faith communities.

An astonishing choral performance of all 150 Psalms in one weekend is coming soon. Tido Vasser, managing director of the Netherlands Chamber Choir, on what inspired him to embark on this ambitious project

Muslims in Quebec City are protesting after being left without their own cemetery following a local referendum, despite an atrocity in January in which a gunman killed six members of a mosque, with five victims being sent abroad for their burial.

A doctor from the United States is to fly to the UK this weekend to assess the critically-ill baby Charlie Gard on Monday. Dr Michio Hirano was named in the High Court in London for the first time this morning.

Under the Trump administration, Christians now make up an increasing share of refugees entering the US, reversing a trend that had seen Muslim immigration outnumber that of Christians under President Obama.

Kidnapped Colombian nun Sister Gloria Argoti is among six hostages, including three missionaries, shown on a video released by a coalition of jihadist groups affiliated to al-Qaeda. The video is the first evidence that Sister Gloria and the other hostages are still alive.

Another video created by the Islamic State terror group has surfaced showing two captured brainwashed children, part of the so-called cubs of the caliphate, shooting two prisoners in the back of the head.

Methodists and Anglicans are on the exchange of agreeing historic proposals that would recognise the ministers and priests of both churches for the first time since they split in the late 18th century. And for the first time ever, the proposals will give Methodists in the UK a bishop.

Methodists and Anglicans are embarking on a process of historic proposals that would recognise the ministers and priests of both churches for the first time since they split in the late 18th century. And for the first time ever, the proposals, if agreed, would give Methodists in the UK a bishop.

A military official said on Saturday more than 100 Christians could be hostages, including a priest, according to information provided by eight residents who escaped their captors during a Friday air strike.

The government said 34 high-rise apartment blocks had failed fire safety checks carried out after the deadly Grenfell Tower blaze, including several in north London where residents were forced to evacuate amid chaotic scenes.

Fears grew for 141 people missing in China after a landslide buried their mountain village in southwestern Sichuan province on Saturday, with reports that only three survivors had been pulled out of the mud and rock hours after the calamity struck.

Investigators said on Friday they would consider manslaughter charges over the London tower block fire that killed at least 79 people, as thousands of apartment-dwellers a few miles away were told to leave their homes due to fire risk.

The wife and son of a Coptic Christian who was among a group of 29 killed and 24 maimed while traveling to amonastery in southern Egypt have described the brutal killings by Islamist extremists and their aftermath.

Massive flames licked up the sides of the block as 200 firefighters battled the blaze for hours along with 40 fire engines. Flumes of black and grey smoke were billowing high into the air over London hours after the blaze was sparked.

Massive flames licked up the sides of the block as 200 firefighters battled the blaze for hours along with 40 fire engines. Flumes of black and grey smoke were billowing high into the air over London hours after the blaze was sparked.

Six-Day War, which began 50 years ago today, marked not only an immediate, decisive victory by Israel over its Arab neighbours, but also has had a major, lasting impact on the conflict between the Jewish state and the Palestinians which remains unresolved to this day.

Our American cousins should know this – the UK withstood the Blitz and the IRA and we will withstand the current wave of terror attacks. You can either help us out or you can spread fake news about us. Make the right choice.

The reason today is significant goes back to 1995, when the US Congress approved the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which requires that the American embassy be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Today, June 1, marks one of the six-month intervals in which the waiver has come up for being signed.

The priest taken hostage last week along with around a dozen parishioners by Islamist militants in the Philippines hasappeared in a video appealing for the government to halt military offensives in the troubled city of Marawi.

Violence erupted last Tuesday after a failed army raid to capture a top militant, Isnilon Hapilon, a leader of the Abu Sayyaf militant group who is on a US terror watch list and has also pledged allegiance to the so-called Islamic State group.

Bodies of what appeared to be executed civilians were found in a ravine outside a besieged Philippine city on Sunday as a six-day occupation by Islamist rebels resisting a military onslaught took a more sinister turn.

Trump flipped traditional US foreign policy upside down on his tour through the Middle East and Europe, coddling Middle Eastern leaders with questionable human rights records while demanding traditional European allies pay more for their defence.

Dogged by controversy at home, President Donald Trump opened a nine-day foreign trip on Saturday in Saudi Arabia, looking to shift attention from a spiraling political firestorm over his firing of former FBI Director James Comey last week.

In the wake of canonising two children whose visions of the Virgin Mary in Fatima in Portugal a century ago transfixed the world, Pope Francis has cast doubt on the veracity of visions that continue to this day in Bosnia.

A story about Zimbabwe pastoreaten alive by three crocodiles after he attempted to show his congregation he could walk on water has been widely reported. The trouble is it never happened - the story is fake news.

Pope Francis gave the Catholic Church two of its youngest saints on Saturday, canonising shepherd siblings believed to have seen the Madonna 100 years ago in a Portuguese town that is now a major pilgrimage site.

Is Franklin Graham selling #FakeNews about Christian persecution? There seems to be great confusion about the statistics on global Christian martyrdom. Persecution matters, but we undermine it if we over-sell it.

Pope Francis has sent a special video message to the people of Portugal as he prepares to travel to Fatima to canonise on Saturday two of the three children who saw six visions of a woman dressed in white, believed to have been the Virgin Mary.

For a man who has endured more than 80 meetings over 12 days during what has been his longest official visit as Archbishop of Canterbury in probably the most complicated region in the world, Justin Welby was in remarkably good spirits as he ended his tour of the Holy Land this afternoon.

Every year on the Sunday before and after World Refugee Day on June 20, the WEA calls on churches to observe World Refugee Sunday with a worship service and prayer focused on displaced people around the world and in their own neighborhoods.

Boko Haram militants have released 82 schoolgirls out of a group of more than 200 whom they kidnapped from the northeastern town of Chibok three years ago in exchange for prisoners, the presidency said on Saturday.

As the French presidential election faces its decisive second round this Sunday, a poll has shown that so far Protestant Christians have shown the highest support for Emmanuel Macron of any faith group.

Australia is favouring Christian refugees over Muslims according to data obtained by the New York Times. Like other Western countries, Australia has taken in a number of refugees from Syria and Iraq, but unlike others, seems to be offering a better chance to Christians.

Pope Francis warned against religious fanaticism on Saturday, wrapping up a brief trip to Cairo where he urged Muslim leaders to unite against violence by Islamic militants threatening to rid the Middle East of its ancient Christian communities.

Leobard "Chito" Aguilar was once a terrorist, a feared rebel leader, and a notorious drug trafficker. But he found God in his darkest moments and now he has become a courageous Christian pastor, defending his flock in Mexico.

The two church bombings that killed dozens in Egypt on Palm Sunday were aimed at targeting unity among Muslims and Christians in the most populous Arab nation, the Coptic Patriarch, Tawadros II said yesterday.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Saturday the United States would honour a controversial refugee deal with Australia, under which the United States would resettle up to 1,250 asylum seekers, a deal President Donald Trump had described as "dumb".

A priest is being asked to take a break from his parish in the Italian town of Montesilvano after some in his congregation reportedly stormed out of Mass when he openly criticised the progressive agenda of Pope Francis.

Leading members of Catholic and Protestant churches in Hungary are backing an online petition calling for church leaders to follow the example of Jesus Christ and serve the Gospel rather than the State in the way they respond to the refugee crisis.

Pope Francis has opened a free launderette in Rome, in the latest of a series of moves aimed at helping poor andhomeless people that has included help with housing, meals, showers, haircuts and medical care.

Today the Archbishop of Canterbury joined Christian Today in an exclusive interview shared on Facebook Live. He shared about the struggles and joys of prayer, the meaning of the resurrection and about how Christians can share their faith with their friends.

At least 36 people have been killed and over 100 injured in two bombings at Coptic churches in Egypt, during the Palm Sunday services. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks, and Church leaders have publicly mourned the loss of life.

Swedish police have arrested a man they suspect drove a beer delivery truck which rammed into a crowd in central Stockholm on Friday, killing four people and wounding 15 in what they described as a terror crime.

The depravity unleashed by the Syrian war throws into sharp relief the deep malaise that has gripped the international community. As world leaders line up to apportion blame, the reality is that Syria represents a collective political failure.

The death toll in the Idlib province of northern Syria has risen to at least 70 after victims were exposed to a toxic gas that survivors said was dropped from warplanes, as a diplomatic row grew over the carnage.

The number of babies born to Muslims is expected to exceed the number born to Christians in under 20 years, according to a new Pew Research report. In addition, Christians are dying out faster than other religions.

A group of Catholic aid agencies is calling on Western countries to do more to help fleeing Syrians, as more than five million people have been forced to cross borders and register as refugees in neighbouring countries.

Twenty people have been tortured then murdered in a gruesome massacre at a Pakistani Sufi shrine in Punjab At least four others suffered injuries in the attack at the shrine, believed to have been carried out by the custodian.

In a sign of its increasing desperation, the Islamic State (ISIS) is dispatching suicide bombers even as young as seven years old to try and hold off the advancing Iraqi forces besieging the ISIS-held city of Mosul.

Christians from around the world have joined together to do something about the humanitarian crisis facing vulnerable Jewish people in the former Soviet Union, and have blessed them with their love and support.

Christians from around the world have joined together to do something about the humanitarian crisis facing vulnerable Jewish people in the former Soviet Union, and have blessed them with their love and support.

As it continues to lose ground to Iraqi-led coalition forces, the Islamic State (ISIS) is lashing back at the remaining civilians in the areas it still controls, using even more brutal measures to intimidate and coerce them.

God is capable of transforming even people with the hardest of hearts, and this is exactly what He did to Bashir Mohammad, a former jihadist who once believed that killing Christians was the right thing to do.

Troubles are piling up on the beleaguered Christians in Nigeria. Already the target of persecution by the savage Boko Haram terrorist group, the Christians who have been displaced from their homes by the Islamist extremists are also being subjected to discrimination in the displacement camps run by local Muslim organisations, the Christian persecution watchdog Open Doors U.K. has revealed.

A prominent evangelist in Uganda foiled another attempt to silence him when a judge dropped cases filed against him, which were aimed at defaming him and stoking Muslim anger on him for providing refuge to Christian converts, sources said.

The #PrayFor hashtag has become a universal, compassionate response to terror events around the world. It reaches beyond any individual faith, even to atheists, in empowering individuals at times when fear and feelings of powerlessness can become almost overwhelming.

Tens of thousands of Christians in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, have been forced to abandon their homes and take refuge on foreign soil to escape the long-running campaign of persecution by the government.

Bangladesh police shot and killed a suspected militant who tried to enter a security checkpost on a motorcycle armed with explosives today, the latest in a string of security incidents since a deadly attack on a cafe in July.

China appears to be intensifying its crackdown on foreign Christian missionaries, arresting and detaining two more South Korean pastors for allegedly attempting to smuggle North Korean defectors out of China.

The East Africa Food Crisis Appeal by 13 charities comprising the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) includes the Christian groups Christian Aid, Cafod, Tearfund and World Vision. But why is famine spreading across the region?

A prominent U.S. prosecutor said the Trump administration fired him on Saturday after he refused to step down, adding a discordant note to what is normally a routine changing of top attorneys when a new president takes office.

An Islamic jihadist group is pushing a campaign to further spread Islam in Spain with the ultimate objective of re-conquering the European country by urging migrant Muslim men to marry local Christian women.

Two Christian pastors in Vietnam recently had a taste of Vietnamese-style persecution when they were kidnapped, stripped, robbed and beaten with metal rods by a group of men who they suspect were working for the police.

Christians living under the yoke of Islamist extremism in Libya face even greater danger following reports that the Islamic State (ISIS) and al-Qaeda have formed an unholy alliance in the southern part of the country.

What motivates suicide bombers to claim their own lives and wreak havoc and destruction? One family, whose son ended his own life in a suicide bomb attack against Iraqi security forces last year, got the answer to this question after he sent them a farewell note before he launched his suicide bomb attack.

This week in Amman, Jordan, World Vision is partnering with Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Cisco and other big tech companies to try to bring a new approach to educating the many thousands of child refugees who have seen their futures sacrificed to war.

Concern is growing for a US Christian missionary kidnapped in Niger more than four months ago. Jeff Woodke, 55, who worked for Jeunesse en Mission Entraide et Developpement, part of Youth With a Mission, was abducted by armed men from his home in Abalak in northern Niger.

Catholics in a rush in Ireland on Ash Wednesday will be able to receive the traditional blessing with the sign of the cross in ash on their foreheads in a drive-through form after an innovation by a church.

The family of an 18-year-old Egyptian Christian woman who has been missing since January 26 has accused the police of complicity in her kidnapping after they failed to act against an alleged suspect who admitted involvement.

The family of an 18-year-old Egyptian Christian woman who has been missing since January 26 has accused the police of complicity in her kidnapping after they failed to act against an alleged suspect who admitted involvement.

Milo Yiannopoulos, the controversial, libertarian, gay editor of Breitbart tech, has been dis-invited as a speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference this week following his comments on relationships between older and younger men.

No to Christian missionaries, but yes to local churches — but only under strict government control. China has once again underscored this policy following the arrest of four South Korean Christian missionaries and the expulsion of at least 32 others last week.

Has the United Nations turned its back on persecuted Christians? The answer is a definitive "yes" as far as the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International is concerned, the World Watch Monitor reported.

The US-based pastor Saeed Abedini, who was released from an Iranian prison last year, has been sentenced after pleading guilty to violating a restraining order taken out by his estranged wife, Naghmeh.

"Till death do us part." Those were the unspoken words as she held the hand of her dying husband before she herself, five days later, bid goodbye to this world. As fate would have it, the couple died of the same disease: cancer.

"Get out of this town or face a massacre." It was a warning like no other. While Islamist extremists have distinguished themselves for their savagery, the one group that raised the warning did not come from their ranks.

The Catholic Bishop of Padua in Italy has said a Catholic priest is likely to be defrocked over claims that he organised orgies on church property, had over 30 lovers and took some to French nudist retreats.

US President Donald Trump has responded with a furious Twitter tirade after a US appeal court has denied the emergency appeal from the US Department of Justice to restore his 90-day travel ban on travellers from seven Muslim countries and on refugees.

They knew they would be severely punished for refusing to obey orders. Despite this, two child soldiers of the Islamic State (ISIS) bravely dared to refuse a direct order from their superiors for them to carry out the execution of two civilian captives.

Her family says there was probable evidence to prove she was kidnapped. There were also signs that she was raped before she was murdered. And yet the police in Pakistan insisted that Tania, 12-year Christian schoolgirl, committed suicide by jumping into a canal.

Donald Trump is coming under pressure from both sides of the aisle to press ahead quickly with his controversial proposal to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – and to do it by stealth.

An Iraqi Christian leader and a senior academic have warned that Christians may not return to Mosul for years to come, if at all, as some residents of the war-torn city celebrate their new freedom from Islamic State.

Iraqis who say their lives are in danger because they worked with the U.S. government in Iraq fear their chances of finding refuge in the United States may vanish under a new order signed on Friday by President Donald Trump.

Not every Muslim hates Christians. Even as the war perpetrated by ISIS continues in Mosul, one Muslim man had the courage to stand up for his Christian brothers and sisters by building a cross for them in a bombed-up church.

Islamic State militants have destroyed one of the most famous monuments in the ancient city of Palmyra, the Tetrapylon, and the facade of its Roman Theatre, Syrian antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim told Reuters on Friday.

Opus Dei, the predominantly lay Catholic organisation which is surrounded by myth and intrigue, will begin the process of electing a new leader on Saturday following the death of its previous prelate last month.

Like angels from heaven, hundreds of "prayer warriors" have descended on Washington D.C. to undertake a crucial mission: protect U.S. President-elect Donald Trump by building a "prayer shield" around him ahead of his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Is it possible that hundreds of Japanese samurai were actually secret Christians who expressed their faith with codes hidden in their sword hilts? As far as the new findings of The Sawada Miki Kinenkan museum in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan are concerned, the answer is "yes."

A Christian pastor from Lahore, the capital city of the Pakistani province of Punjab, has been arrested by the authorities because he allegedly disrespected the Holy Quran during an incident that happened recently in Nishtar Colony.

A Christian woman in China who was beaten repeatedly by officials and suffered two miscarriages as a result is in need of urgent cancer treatment that she cannot afford, according to a Christian charity.

Iraq over this new year period is witnessing a "grass-roots revolt against terrorism", alongside a renewed commitment to the "defense of life, peace, joy" as Muslims attended Mass and people celebrated the start of 2017, according to the Chaldean Patriarch there, Mar Raphael Louis Sako.

If Donald Trump goes ahead with his pledge to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem it will "ignite" the Palestinian people who could start a new uprising, a senior Fatah official has said.

A Sudanese church leader has been released but three others – a fellow pastor, an aid worker and a graduate – continue toface the death penalty or life imprisonment for seven criminal charges relating to alleged "spying".

Two bombs claimed by Islamic State killed 25 people in central Baghdad on Saturday, as fighting intensified in the northern city of Mosul where government forces are trying to rout the jihadists from their last major stronghold in the country.

A Yazidi woman held captive by Islamic State militants for more than two years managed to escape when Iraqi forces pushed into Mosul and provided information that helped them retake a neighbourhood of the city, Iraqi commanders said.

Iraqi security forces on Thursday began the second phase of their offensive against Islamic State militants in Mosul, pushing from three directions into eastern districts where the battle has been deadlocked for nearly a month.

A Catholic church in Sri Lanka raised quite a lot of eyebrows after it displayed the lyrics of a song by rapper Tupac instead of the "Hail Mary" on a page in booklets distributed to the congregants last Dec. 11.

The Islamic State (ISIS) has released a gruesome video showing two men, said to be captured Turkish soldiers, being taken out of their cage and made to walk like dogs in the middle of a desert before they were burned alive, The Daily Mail reported.

The Israel Antiquities Authority found the bowl with the inscription "Hyrcanus" in the Givʽati Parking Lot currently being excavated at the City of David. The dig is one of the largest taking place in Jerusalem.

A window has been opened into the secretive world of the Islamic State (ISIS), showing how the extremists are training children to fill their depleted ranks as they come under relentless attacks from Iraqi and other coalition forces.

The Islamic State (ISIS) has warned that it will escalate terrorist attacks against Christians in the coming weeks, reports said. It appeared to have carried out the threat on Monday night when a lorry ploughed through a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany, killing nine people and injuring more than 50 other shoppers, according to the Mirror.

The Islamic State (ISIS) has warned that it will escalate terrorist attacks against Christians in the coming weeks, reports said. It appeared to have carried out the threat on Monday night when a lorry ploughed through a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany, killing at least 12 people and injuring nearly 50 other shoppers, reports said.

Church and charity leaders today warned against tarnishing asylum seekers with accusations of terrorism after there were mixed reports in Germany about the identity of the attacker who targeted a Christmas market in Berlin last night.

Talks in Democratic Republic of Congo between the ruling coalition and the opposition failed to reach a compromise on the political future of President Joseph Kabila, who is set to stay in power when his mandate ends on Monday.

Ecuador sent soldiers and police on Thursday to an isolated jungle area after a policeman was killed and several security officials injured in a violent protest against a Chinese copper exploration project amid conflicts between mining companies and indigenous communities.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and opposition leader Alvaro Uribe were unable to find common ground on a peace accord with Marxist FARC rebels, even with the mediation of Pope Francis when they met at the Vatican on Friday.

Thirteen soldiers were killed and 48 more were injured when a car bomb hit a bus transporting off-duty military personnel in the central Turkish city of Kayseri on Saturday, one week after a twin bombing targeted police in Istanbul.

As the evacuation of rebel-held areas of Aleppo got under way today, in the east, ambulances came under fire from fighters loyal to the Syrian government, who killed at least one person, according to a rescue service spokesman.

These "parties" are bloody and are not pleasant at all to the women joining them. These are the female genital mutilation (FGM) "parties" that a British charity has said are going on across England that have so far victimised at least 8,000 women, the BBC reported.

"Come out and make a stand!" Archbishop Socrates Villegas, head of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, made the rallying cry on Sunday as he urged Filipinos to resist the threat of the restoration of the death penalty in their country.

The Catholic Church in India has admitted for the first time that Dalit Christians in the country face discrimination from the caste system and that "their participation in the level of leadership... at the higher levels is almost nil".

Jews are the best educated of any religious group, averaging 13.4 years of schooling and with a majority going on to higher education, according to a new report by the respected Washington-based Pew Research Center.

Lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties in the United States have united to call on the government of India to ease funding restrictions it imposed on a Christian organisation based only on an accusation that it is encouraging religious conversions.

More and more refugees from the Middle East in Germany are turning their backs on Islam and embracing Christianity because of their desire to feel loved and free, a pastor guiding the migrants through their conversions shared.

A Christian teacher from Uganda was threatened with death and beaten until he lost consciousness by Muslim residents from his village who were angry about how he turned his back on Islam to embrace Christianity.